Altenberg, Germany – It was a perfect day for biathlon, with no wind, clear blue skies and a picturesque mountain venue in Germany for the first day of U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team trials. On the Men’s side, MWSC alumnus, Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid) was able to overcome two penalties to beat Zach Hall (Alaska) by 9 seconds. Hall had a perfect day on the range and took second place, 23 seconds ahead of Leif Nordgren (Minnesota), who had one penalty. Walt Shepard (Yarmouth) had two penalties to finish in 5th place.br /br /On the Women’s side Sara Studebaker missed one target and posted a blistering pace to win by 23 seconds over MWSC alumnus, Laura Spector, who had a perfect day on the range. MWSC alum Tracy Colliander, with one miss, was 1 minute 20 seconds off Studebaker’s pace for third. Colliander’s twin sister, and fellow MWSC alum, Lanny Barnes, also with one miss, was 1 minute 41 seconds back and MWSC skier BethAnn Chamberlain was 1 minute 57 seconds back for 6th. Training and competing in Altenberg, Grace Boutot (Ft. Kent) hit 80% finishing 7th in the time trial. Boutot is preparing for the Jr. World Championships in Torsby, Sweden later this month.br /br /The team has tomorrow off to prepare for the IBU Cup, which starts on Saturday with another Sprint competition. The top 60 finishers in both fields in the Sprint will move on to the Pursuit on Sunday. At the end of competition on Sunday the scores will be added up for the racers top two scores. The 2 highest Men’s scores and the three highest Women’s scores will be nominated to the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) for inclusion on the Olympic Team. The USOC will announce the final Team on Monday.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6813061107698506856-4658046260007058678?l=mwscbiathlon.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
